survive, even if it kills you
by AdorableLittleWriter
Summary: Insides on the asphalt. - ROTBTD. Zombie AU.


**(Note: this may or may not have had a heavy influence by another fanfiction writer I really love cough cough also I'm unscrupulous in stealing lines) Because crossovers are really hard. But kickass music calls for kickass AUs of kicking-of-the-ass zombies, and this had to be written. Inspiration song is "The Phoenix" by Fall Out Boy. Please rate and review! **

**Disclaimer: All rights reserved to the owners of the characters. I do not own characters used.**

**EDIT: Hey guys, for those of you who feel like you read this before, it's because it was previously uploaded as a SONGFIC. However that was against the 's rules and guidelines, and it got taken down after a while. I'm re-uploading it again though, just without the song lyrics put in. I advise in listening to the song whilst you read it, it would put in more of an impact. :D**

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**Title: **survive, even if it kills you

**Summary: **Insides on the asphalt. –– ROTBTD. Zombie AU.

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Merida looked over the landscape-ruins of what used to be a city, and felt sick with her self.

She was standing on top of what once used to be a tower, having climbed over twisted steel and broken concrete, and was watching the remains of the self-destruct of humanity rot away in the dirty pale sunlight. This tower used to be an impressive one, Merida remembered, distantly, as she glanced at the rubble that lay crushed beneath her boots. Used to be. It _used_ to be an impressive tower.

Things haven't been impressive around here, not for a long time.

Merida brushed curly red hair out from her eyes as she adjusted the quiver around her waist. Her bright blue eyes scanned the horizon in the distance. The sun was rising higher in the sky. Merida disliked this time of the day; on the occasions when they were forced to go out from time to time, Hiccup always chose this time of the day as the cue for them to head out.

Merida _hated_ going out.

But today she didn't have a choice; the others had instructed her to scour the area for danger before they set out for their food-run, and this was the only vantage spot in the entire city high enough to scan Burgess for miles around.

Merida wondered.

It wasn't like how she dreamed it would be. The end of the world hadn't come the way humans had expected – there was no meteorite collision, no great tsunami, no large-scale natural disaster. No giant volcanic eruption, no worldwide water pollution; _nothing._ There hadn't been anything, in the end, that humanity could use to attribute its fall to but them selves.

(Because that was what really mattered, Merida thought, even till the end of the end – the reassurance that humanity hadn't directly brought their apocalypse upon themselves, that it was due to something they couldn't control. So that humans could have something to _blame _and can self-righteously say that _it's not our fault, we didn't cause it, there was no way to stop it – _even though ultimately, everything _was _mankind's own arrogant fault and that _mayb' we aren't as invincible as we tho'ght we were, stupid fuckers–_)

Merida snarled humourlessly.

The stench of rotting-flesh was everywhere, even this high up a ruined tower, and Merida wondered if this was really what humanity has sunk to. A handful of them left at best, fighting for their lives, killing because, well, peace wasn't really an option anymore.

It was year 2197, and the world was struggling with a zombie war.

Merida bundled her red hair up on her head, and wondered if this was how she was supposed to end.

–

Merida pulled her lips back into a dangerous razor-sharp grin, and she was all teeth and no smiles, again. Sweat trickled down her neck as she fired arrow after arrow at those god-be-damned-things, with their dropping skin and their grey rotting flesh and their horrible horrible yellow blank eyes, and god Merida hated looking at them, she hated looking at them all.

Because they used to be alive once. Merida knew.

Behind her Jack grunted as he shoved his sceptre-like…. thing (Merida didn't even _know _what his weapon was – you took what you could get, in this world,) into a zombie's head, and Merida fired another arrow. She could see out of the corner of her eye that Hiccup and Rapunzel were doing just fine; Hiccup had battered several zombies to death with his nail-hammered bat already, and Rapunzel hardly had a scratch on her. She's gotten handy with the dangers that Merida had trained her with.

Merida pulled her lips back wider.

"Smiling already, DunBroch? The battle's not over yet; I'd look out if I were you," Jack mocked, pulling his bloodied weapon out of a zombie's skull. He turned to look at Merida. "How about a race? To see who can finish their battle up faster, and get out of here." Jack twirled his staff around casually, a smirk on his pale-bloodied features. "You ready for some fun, DunBroch?"

Merida glanced at Jack, threw her head back, and laughed and laughed and laughed. Her teeth flashed jagged in the sunlight. She swiftly shot out another arrow, not daring to look the zombie in the eye. "Yer on, Frost."

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At night, they gather in the little house they've set up as home base.

They checked through it every night, to make sure that no zombies had snuck in when they were out, and that no rotting bastards were waiting in the shadows to pounce on them and devour their brains and flesh. It was tiring (and terrifying; those greedy flesh-devouring creatures knew how to smell them out, and god knows that they've had nasty surprises more than once that's given them heart attacks), and sometimes Merida thinks it would be easier for them to just move from place to place every night – but then she would look at them all, and remind herself that they needed this. They needed this.

They needed some semblance of a home, even in this twisted shadow world of a once-was.

They sat lit by the dull glow of the small fire in the fireplace. Merida looked up from fashioning new arrows for her self to glance around the living room. (Arrows didn't come from just anywhere, you know, and Merida would be damned if she ran out of them while fighting.) Jack was reclining in an armchair, presumably resting, with an arm thrown across his ice blue eyes; Hiccup was planning out what they had to do (_in order to survive,_ Merida thought bitterly, but doesn't say it out loud), his green eyes narrowed in concentration, and Rapunzel… Rapunzel was sharpening her knives and humming to herself, a little smile on her face.

Hysteric laughter bubbled at Merida's throat.

She kind of hated them, a little.

–

It had happened really slowly, you know.

The end of the world.

It hadn't just appeared out of the blue; they actually had time to stop it. They could've seen the signs. They could've_ prevented_ it, if only they had _looked. _But they hadn't, and they didn't notice it, and things simply escalated until now, it was like _this. _

Merida clenched her hands into fists in the darkened room, and her blue eyes glowed-almost in the dark.

(It was her watch first, tonight, and Merida was supposed to keep an eye out for everybody as they slept. Which wasn't good. She felt like a feral animal right now, rough and high-strung, and she wasn't sure if she could stand the quiet for long.)

–

They were fighting again, and Merida was just _tired,_ of it all.

She pulled her lips tight around a snarl, and felt very much like screaming aloud. The zombies just kept on and on _coming. _Even as Merida kept on firing arrow after arrow at them, there were just more and more zombies to deal with, and Merida was starting to worry about her supply of arrows. It would be almost fatal to run out of them now.

Hiccup streaked past Merida, a blur of brown-black-green, and swung his bat down onto a zombie's head. His prosthetic leg gleamed in the sunlight, and it hurt Merida's eyes to look at him. The bat smashed into the zombie's skull, and the zombie dropped down as the insides of his head spilled out on the road. "_Don't stop!_" he roared. "We need to get past them! Kill them, or be killed!"

Merida winced.

She wished Hiccup wouldn't use a word as strong as _kill. _

Merida turned away (it still hurt to look at him), and went on firing more arrows. She couldn't see where Jack was, but she heard him call back, "Aye aye captain!" Merida could almost _see _the smirk on his face and the mock salute he would do. She furrowed her eyebrows.

(She didn't get it. Jack was confusing. How could anyone be so cheerful, in the middle of war?)

Merida reached to her side for more arrows, only for her hands to grasp nothing but air. "_Fuck!_" she looked up and cursed as a zombie's hand swiped where her head had been barely just a few seconds ago. Ducking, Merida drew out the daggers she kept on her belt and, quickly, stabbed one into the zombie's head. Blood spurted out as the zombie as it – she, it was female this time – fell. Merida only flinched a little bit. Spinning around, Merida rapidly began slashing her way through the damned monsters; she could see Rapunzel not far off, doing the same.

So much blood. So much violence. Merida couldn't get the image of the zombies (with their insides spilling _out-on-the-asphalt ontheasphalt_) out of her head. Hiccup's bat had so much blood coating it, that the nails were rusted with it.

She had thought she'd be used to all the killing by now, having done it for almost a year.

(But you never really get used to war, not really.)

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"You're _what?" _ Jack stared at Hiccup like he had gone mad.

They were gathered in the house, again, tonight, and Merida looked up from her arrows to gawk at Hiccup, who was massaging his temples with one hand.

"I'm trying to find a solution for this entire thing."

"Wha- _why? _Have you gone crazy?"

"No, I haven't!" Hiccup burst out, leaping up from the armchair (away from Rapunzel's hands bandaging his wounds), and started pacing about rapidly. "This entire zombie business was started up by a virus; a virus that us, humans, had created by accident! If we had started this entire mess, then, by theory, we should be able to fix it too, right? The solution for this should be out there somewhere, right?" Hiccup looked back at everybody's startled faces with his eyes wide.

(They could all hear the desperation in his voice.)

It was silent for a long, long time, before Rapunzel finally broke it. "Yeah, sure, Hiccup," she smiled softly, getting up to put an encouraging hand on his shoulder. "I'm sure you'll be able to find the solution somewhere. I'm rooting for you!" Her voice sounded hopeful.

"No, no it's not."

Everybody's heads turned to stare at Merida, who leant against the wall with her fire hair in her eyes. Merida felt a sick sense of satisfaction watching Hiccup deflate like a punctured balloon, and pushed herself off of the wall to walk over to where they were.

(Merida felt like a feral animal, again, tonight.)

"You don't know that," Jack pointed out, narrowing his eyes. "You won't know until you've tried."

"Th' news back then said so, _Frost,_" Merida spat, getting up to Jack's face, letting the anger she had within her skin be released, for once. Hope was such a childish thing. "An _unknown_ virus, rememb'r, and th' world's _top scientists _back th'n didn't even have a fuckin' _clue _how to stop it, what makes ye think," Merida stepped past Jack and focused her eyes on Hiccup now, and saw him flinch, "_ye _can?"

"Merida–" Rapunzel protested. Merida slammed a fist into the side of a wall.

"_What part of you even thinks tha' ye can fix this entire mess in the first place?" _She yelled. Everybody jumped.

_Unspoken-and-spoken-and all the thingsinbetween–_

Merida watched Hiccup open his mouth, watched him swallow the lump in his throat again and again and again, and felt like punching him in the throat. "I can try," he said weakly. Foolish boy.

Foolish, _foolish _boy.

Merida shook her head and walked away from them all. She felt like crying and laughing; where was this boy, when the world had needed him?

–

Sometimes Merida would step back and think about everything the war had done to them so far.

Everyone had lost something. Hiccup had lost his girlfriend, his friends, a family, his home. (His leg, too, but Merida didn't ask about that; it had happened long before the four of them had decided to join up, and Merida wasn't particularly one to pry.) His father Stoick had been the only one in his family that Hiccup had had; and then there was Astrid, Gobber, Toothless (his cat, his goddamn cat, Hiccup was sentimental enough to miss his goddamn _cat_), Snotlout, Fishlegs – friends so close they were practically family, and they _were._ They had all been precious to him, his friends and his loved one and his loved family and his loved _cat _(Merida was never going to let this one go), and he had lost them all.

Merida had lost her entire family, too. They had perished when the zombies had attacked her home (their insides on the asphalt _their insides ontheasphalt Merida couldn't bear the idea of insides on the asphalt_) and she was the only one who had survived. Her dad, her three wee little devils of her younger brothers, and – and her mother, they had all died.

(Well, almost all. Merida didn't know what had happened to her mother. Merida didn't think that she had been killed like the rest of her family had been. Merida was hoping to find her.)

(She wondered. Hope was _such_, _a_ childish thing. )

Rapunzel's life hadn't been a very pretty thing in the first place. Her mother hadn't been the kindest, Merida knew; she didn't know about her much before this, but had heard the rumours flittering around their town, about the girl with too-long blonde hair and flowers everywhere who smiled every day and screamed every night as her mother beat her. Her boyfriend had been the only consolation of her life: that Eugene what's-his-name. Rapunzel had said once that she was looking for him.

(He was probably dead. But Merida didn't tell her that.)

God knows what happened to Jack; they had found him on the back of an alley, alone, desperate and bloodied, and they had taken him in. But he hadn't mentioned one word of his family or what had happened to them, and nobody had asked or dared to pry. It was his business, after all, and they didn't have the right to know.

Just a ragtag group of humans, struggling to survive.

(Merida thinks they aren't doing a very good job of it.)

–

Two days after, and Merida was forced to kill her mother by her own hand.

She could only watch numbly as she fell, arrow through her skull, insides on the asphalt, all bones and teeth and rotting flesh and horrible horrible yellowed blank eyes and god, Merida hated looking at her, hated hated looking at her, hated looking at herself.

She started to shake, trembling and falling to the ground even as shouts rang all around her, telling her to _get up it's not safe here _and _are you alright _and _what the hell are you doing DunBroch, do you actually want to fucking die? _

(Kind of, right now.)

(Hope really _was_ _such_ a childish thing.)

It was no mistaking it was her mother: that hair, that face shape – even with the flesh half dropping off of her, Merida still recognised her mother, who wouldn't recognise their own _mother_ – and her _wrist_ –

Merida bit back a furious sob.

Her mother's wrist still wore the tapestry bracelet Merida had clumsily made for her, so many years ago. Merida had finally found her mother.

And she had killed her.

–

"Why do we ev'n keep fightin'?" Merida asked no one in particular, on one night in a dozen, sitting in the house on the floor with her eyes trained on the ceiling and on nobody in the room.

Silence met her.

Merida finally let the hysteric laughter slip out of her throat.

–

She was sent out for danger-scouring, again.

Merida licked her lips, and stood in front of the dozens and dozens of zombies that were standing in front of her.

They had ambushed her, just as she was heading back, and she was surrounded. There was no time to call for the others.

Merida grinned, scissor-smile razor thin.

Well, _fuck _them.

She could take these zombies on by herself.

And she was out for _blood._

–

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**This was REALLY difficult to write. I tried to stick to their original personalities as closely as possible? (whispers no not really nope) Well, maybe not, because Jack is a lot more sarcastic and Merida is a lot… angrier. And to note, I haven't actually WATCHED How To Train Your Dragon before, so Hiccup's characterisation is probably, like, WAY off. Yes please don't kill me. **

** And Rapunzel hardly has a role in this story? ASDFGHJKL what is characterisation. What is writing. **

** Please rate and review!**


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